


Love is Dead

by capitalnineteen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, TAZiversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 07:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15724443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitalnineteen/pseuds/capitalnineteen
Summary: Taako has never had a soulmark. Kravitz didn't while he was alive. Once he gets one, it keeps changing.





	Love is Dead

Kravitz didn’t have a soulmark. Not while he was alive, anyway. After he died, he figure that was that. Reapers didn’t get soulmates. End of story.

Except after a few decades as a reaper, he gets a mark. Written across his right arm in simple letters are the words, “Who are you?”

His soulmate has just been born.

\---

Taako had never had a soulmark. He figured it was better than his sister’s. Her mark are the words “Um, hi” in plain, undecorated letters.

Who knew if she’d ever find her soulmate with such a generic first line? How many times had she obsessed over someone who said that to her only to decide, ‘No, it wasn’t _that_ one either.’

\---

For almost two hundred years it stays the same. Kravitz waits for the day it will fade. It’s the only explanation he can think of: his soulmate will become a reaper. When the mark fades it will be because his soulmate has died. Then, they can finally meet.

He feels a little guilty thinking of his soulmate never having a mark. Kravitz has been dead for his soulmate’s entire life.

Does the “Who are you?” mean Kravitz will actually be the one to reap him? He hopes not. He is mostly he’s on special assignments now. He collects souls that have committed crimes against the Raven Queen. He really doesn’t want his soul mate to spend eternity in the Eternal Stockade.

\---

For the second time, the Starblaster escapes through the barrier between planar systems. The seven crew members are unmade. When they exist again their bodies have reset though their memories remain the same.

Taako still has no soulmark. Lup’s still hasn’t changed. How is that possible? Their world has been destroyed. Maybe she’ll meet him in a different planar system. They just spent a year with animals. Maybe a future cycle will have someone worthy of his sister.

\---

Kravitz is dressing one morning and is shocked into stillness. His mark is gone. Has his soulmate died? Then something catches his eye. Across his chest are words difficult to make out because they are upside down. In the mirror they are reversed. But it’s just a few words, this time in jagged, angry letters: “What the fuck are you?”

What does that even mean? Did his soulmate die and already he has a new one? Or is his soulmark just broken because he’s a reaper and it was never meant to work for him?

\---

Fourteen cycles in, Taako beefs it early. Nine months without cha’boy.

\---

Kravitz’s soulmark is gone again. He’s checked everywhere. There’s nothing. That must be it, he assumes. Soulmarks don’t work for reapers. He’d gotten his hopes up for 183 years. Maybe he had someone else’s mark by mistake.

He’d ask the Raven Queen but the marks are Istus’s territory and it feels insulting to question his queen about another deity’s possible dominion over him.

\---

Taako has a theory about his sister’s mark. If she listened to him, if she just _thought_ about it, she’d realize his theory is a hell of a lot better than the prospect of her soulmate being on a plane they’ll only be in for a year. But she’s too busy pretending she doesn’t have feelings for the nerd.

Twenty one cycles in, Taako is pretty convinced of his theory. He’s never seen Barry’s mark but the guy _never_ goes in the water without a shirt on. He bets his sister’s first words to him are written somewhere over Barry’s heart. He can’t remember what Lup might have said to him first but Taako feels a little bad for Barry. It probably wasn’t something you’d want on your chest for … how long are they going to be stuck like this anyway?

\---

Kravitz’s mark had come back. It was gone for months but now it’s back. Or a version of it is back. Now the words are back on his right arm. In flowing handwriting it says, “Hey, what’s your name?”

The marks must be wrong. How could his soulmate have been gone for nine months and come back? How do his words keep changing?

\---

Taako watches his sister and Barry take off after their duet. He wonders if she’s realized Barry isn’t just who she’s in love with, he’s actually her soulmate. Has Barry told her whatever his mark says? Or is the nerd keeping it for a surprise the first time he takes his shirt off.

Either way, Taako figures he’ll hear about it soon.

Good thing he’s not jealous.

\---

Kravitz’s mark has changed again. The lettering seems a little fancier, smoother. “Hey, handsome, who are you?” Did his soulmate die in a traumatic way and return to life changed somehow? No, if these soulmarks were really his then his soulmate had been dead for months that time. That couldn’t be.

\---

Magnus tries to point out that they are probably the only ones who know what it feels like to be turned to stone but _fuck that._ There is no upside to the fucking Judge’s World except that it’s behind them.

Taako doesn’t need giant stone assholes judging him. _Fuck all of that._

\---

The mark was gone for a whole year this time. Kravitz has started paying closer attention. Dates and calendars haven’t meant anything to him in a long time but now he writes down when things change with his mark.

He still believes it’s just a mistake, but it’s good to have notes, right?

This time, angry letters are scrawled across his chest that read: “What the fuck do you want, asshole?”

\---

Taako and Barry have been looking for Lup constantly. Barry is dead on his feet. Though, he’s a lich so isn’t he always?

Where the hell is she? Even if she died somehow she should have come floating back to the ship with the ridiculous story of how _she really fucking goofed this one, didn’t she? Blew her final body on some real dumb shit! Good job, Lup!_

But she hadn’t.

Magnus and Merle and Davenport have helped look a little. Lucretia was holed up in her room. Taako doesn’t have anything left in him to deal with any of them.

His concern is Lup.

Who?

\---

The mark has changed again. Plain letters from wrist to elbow on his right arm read, “My name is Taako, and you look like you're made of salt.”

Kravitz had a name to go on now. _Was_ that a name? And what did that comment mean? How could he look like he was made of salt?

Maybe he doesn’t have a soulmark. Maybe he has some kind of outtakes from a cookbook.

Makes as much sense as everything else he’s seen in almost 300 years of marks on him.

\---

It's the middle of the apocalypse and Taako is kissing Kravitz. He's holding the reaper's cold face in his hands when the sudden thought occurs to him.

A dead soulmate doesn’t leave a mark.

He’s a little disappointed he didn’t make that tentacle remark sooner.


End file.
